The EdSheet Vol. 28

This newsletter covers the business side of the education industry - venture funding, M&A, other financial transactions. Whiteboard Advisors also publishes a daily newsletter - What We’re Reading - of curated, industry-focused news clips and a weekly newsletter - Whiteboard Notes - which covers policy, industry trends, and insights from W/A CEO Ben Wallerstein.

Hello! 

I’ll be in Austin next week for SXSWedu! If you’ll be in town, I hope you’ll join Rayna Glumac, Ray Batra, and me for a meetup at the Marriott just before happy hour on Monday to talk shop - more information on our event can be found here.

I am also starting to gear up for this year’s ASU GSV conference April 12-15. Please reach out if you’re planning to attend.

In this edition of the EdSheet, you’ll also read about:

• KKR spends $1.3B to continue expansion into Southeast Asia: The fund’s latest transaction is for Singapore-based XCL Education.

• The great computer science exodus might be premature: as starting salaries for entry-level employees with computer science degrees continue to rise.

• Small schools are in: how a lack of scale could be an asset as schools wrestle with changing curriculum requirements, shifting populations, and labor strife.

With that, onto the news!

Funding / M&A

Whiteboard Advisors not only provides policy and market-related diligence and advisory services, we track every financial transaction that happens in education — and keep a record of all deals that are publicly announced.

The following transactions caught our eye over the past few weeks. If you have a deal to announce, or would like access to the full transactions database, please reach out.

Venture Funding

Subject raises $28M / US, K-12 Curriculum / Vistara Growth, NextEquity Partners, Green Street Impact Partners, Outcomes Collective, Kleiner Perkins, True Equity, L’Attitude Ventures, Hannah Grey

Subject is a digital curriculum platform serving grades 6–12, currently partnered with ~1,000 schools across the U.S. The company will use this funding to further expand its accredited course catalog and build additional automation tools for educators and administrators.

BoldVoice raises $21M / US, Language Learning / Matrix, Flybridge, Xfund, Corazon Capital, Alumni Ventures, Umami Capital, Y Combinator

BoldVoice is an accent coaching app for non-native English speakers that delivers real-time, phoneme-level pronunciation feedback alongside video coaching from speech experts. The company claims over 5 million downloads and $10M ARR with users in more than 150 countries. BoldVoice will use the Series A proceeds to accelerate global expansion and develop new speech models.

BeConfident raises ~$14.5M / Brazil, Language Learning / Prosus Ventures

BeConfident uses AI agents to deliver personalized language learning instruction. The São Paulo-based company generated ~$12M in revenue in 2025 and this round values the company at ~$91M. The company plans to use this funding round to expand into the US, Europe, and Asia.

Take2 raises $14M / US, Recruiting Software / Human Capital, Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments, Reach Capital, SemperVirens VC, Honeystone Ventures

Take2 deploys AI agents for healthcare recruiting. Its first product, an AI Interviewer, conducts candidate phone screens 24/7, evaluates applicants, records calls, and syncs results into ATS platforms. Take2 will use this funding round to expand into sourcing, screening, credential verification, scheduling, and onboarding.

Vimi raises $12M / Israel, K-12 Tutoring / Viola Ventures, BRM

Vimi is an AI tutoring platform for K-12 students. The company, which is coming out of stealth with the announcement of this funding round, is focusing its attention on math tutoring specifically. 

CollegeDekho raises $10M / India, HED College Admissions / CarDekho Group

CollegeDekho is a college admissions and guidance platform that offers entrance exam prep, course selection, and application support to prospective students. With this funding round, the company adds $10M to the $90M+ it has already raised and allows CarDekho Group to expand its ownership stake to ~40%. The capital will fund CollegeDekho’s expansion into tier-II and tier-III Indian cities and deeper partnerships with their educational institutions.

BRUM raises $5M / Italy, Vocational School / Italian Founders Fund

BRUM is a Milan-based startup digital driving school operator, offering mobile app for theory study, quizzes, document uploads, training bookings, and progress tracking. The company will use the capital from this funding round to open one new driving school per month for the next three years.

Cashmere raises $5M / US, Publishing Infrastructure / Reach Capital, Pearson, Ingram, Naver

Cashmere is building API-first infrastructure that lets content providers control, monetize, and distribute their content to AI systems via MCP. Cashmere is led by a veteran EdTech team that raised $25M+ for their prior venture, BookClub, and the organization notes early partnerships with Wiley, Harvard Business Publishing, and Perplexity.

Sparkli raises $5M / Switzerland, Early Learning / Founderful, Arc Investors

Sparkli is a Zurich-based learning platform for children ages 5–12, founded by Alphabet veterans. This round will fund the beta launch of the company’s platform after a successful pilot program with a large-scale private school network.

Teacher’s Buddy raises ~$1.3M / New Zealand, Teacher Productivity / Soul Capital, Giant Leap

Teacher’s Buddy supports the automation of lesson planning, assessment generation, and reporting for K-12 educators. The platform has been adopted by 12,000+ teachers in 130 countries since launching 18 months ago. This funding round will support go-to-market efforts in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.

Cartwheel announces Series B / US, K-12 Mental Health / A-Street, Citi Impact Fund, Britebound, American Heart Association, Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, Reach Capital, Able Partners

Cartwheel is a K-12 school telehealth provider, now serving 350 school districts across 15 states and claiming 300% year-over-year growth. The company is using the new capital to add to its leadership team and continued expanding in the US.

M&A

Quizlet acquires Coconote / US, Study Tools

Quizlet, a long-time study tools provider, acquired Coconote, a note-taking app that converts audio and video recordings into notes, quizzes, flashcards, and study games. This acquisition adds to Quizlet’s product portfolio, allowing students to convert raw recorded content from lectures or videos directly into study tools. Quizlet CEO Kurt Beidler framed the deal as a move to create a platform that “mirrors how learning actually happens.” 

Newsela acquires EveryDay Labs / US, Content Provider (Analytics)

Newsela, best known for its standards-aligned content library, is continuing its expansion into student data/analytics with the acquisition of EveryDay Labs, which builds attendance improvement tools for K-12 districts. The deal is designed to connect EveryDay Labs with Schoolytics, Newsela's student data platform, giving district leaders a unified view of academic progress, behavior, and chronic absenteeism in one place. EveryDay Labs will remain available as a standalone product.

Great Minds acquires Odell / US, K-12 Curriculum (ELA)

Core curriculum provider Great Minds added high school ELA to its portfolio of content offerings with its acquisition of the Odell High School Literacy Program.

Savi acquires Fiducius / US, Education Benefits / Student Loans

Savi, a student loan and education benefits platform, made its first acquisition with the purchase of Fiducius, which provides employee education benefits to corporations (a rapidly growing market) and manages more than $2 billion in student loan debt. 

Edustaff acquires E-Therapy / US, Education Staffing / Special Education

Edustaff, a national education staffing company partnered with districts in 14 states, acquired E-Therapy, a 17-year-old provider of virtual and hybrid therapy services. The deal expands Edustaff’s services portfolio as mental health continues to be a front-and-center issue for K12 schools and districts across the US (see Cartwheel’s Series B above). 

Teal acquires Ramped Careers / US, Career Development

Teal, a job search and career development platform used by 4 million professionals, acquired Ramped Careers, a platform that automates job applications by tailoring resumes and cover letters and submitting applications on behalf of job seekers. Teal CEO David Fano framed the deal as deepening the platform’s ability to cover the full job application journey, from strategic guidance to automated execution.

Orijin acquires Honest Jobs / US, EdTech / Reentry

Orijin, a provider of education and career pathways to justice-involved individuals, acquired Honest Jobs, a national employment platform connecting formerly incarcerated individuals with job opportunities and reentry resources. CEO Harris Ferrell described the deal as creating the first end-to-end education-to-employment pathway for justice-involved individuals in the US, expanding Orijin’s reach from correctional facilities into parole, probation, and community corrections. 

Valsoft acquires DigitalEd / Canada, HED STEM Software

Valsoft Corporation, a Montreal-based acquirer of vertical market software businesses, expanded its education portfolio with the acquisition of DigitalEd, a Waterloo, Ontario company whose Möbius platform is used by hundreds of higher education institutions worldwide to deliver STEM courses through online learning and assessment. 

Beast Industries acquires Step / US, Teen Fintech

Jimmy Donaldson - also known as Mr. Beast - announced that his company Beast Industries acquired Step, a teen-focused banking app that raised over $500 million in venture funding from General Catalyst, Coatue, and Stripe, and has grown to 7 million users. Step offers financial services for teens including credit building, savings, and investing. “Nobody taught me about investing, building credit, or managing money when I was growing up,” Donaldson said. “I want to give millions of young people the financial foundation I never had.”

Buyouts

KKR acquires XCL Education for $1.3B / Singapore, K-12 School Operator

KKR agreed to acquire a majority stake in XCL Education - operator of K-12 campuses including XCL World Academy in Singapore, the American School of Bangkok’s Sukhumvit campus, and Vietnam Australia International School - in a deal valuing the company at approximately $1.3 billion. The deal extends KKR’s education footprint in Southeast Asia, which also includes stakes in Lighthouse Learning, Taylor’s Education Group, EQuest Education, Vinschools, and Cognita Asia.

Exxat raises minority growth round / US, Healthcare Clinical Education / Accel-KKR

Exxat is a technology platform for clinical and experiential education in healthcare, managing placements, onboarding, compliance, curriculum alignment, and student progress across nursing, allied health, behavioral health, and public health programs. The platform supports 1,600+ academic programs, 10,000+ clinical affiliates, and 400,000+ learners nationwide. Founder and CEO Aarti Vaishnav will use Accel-KKR’s investment to accelerate product development and expand the platform’s reach across healthcare education and workforce development.

What’s on your Whiteboard? Perspectives on Student Success

Strategic Education’s Joshua Gruder discusses the launch of the company’s Signal Labs accelerator program

Stellic CEO Sabih Bin Wasi discusses his evolution as a founder, the development of the student success discipline at universities, and AI in EdTech

News of Note

This section is intended to be more exploratory, a reflection of stories, ideas, and trends that I think are important for EdTech executives and investors to be aware of. 

Early Childhood

• How Texas school vouchers could make childcare more affordable.

• The Machinists Institute takes on the childcare shortage.

K12

• The debate continues over Alpha School, which seems increasingly likely to be the poster child startup of the early-AI era of EdTech. Students are being treated like guinea pigs.

• My only gripe is that this debate focuses on the wrong part of Alpha School. The company’s disruptive innovation is not its use of AI, but rather the way it leverages technology to make classroom academics part of school rather than taking up the whole day. 

• To be more direct, Alpha’s intended student experience sounds like an inspiring mix of academics and fun. Which is important because traditional school models are, mostly, not. In fact, they may be a bigger driver of teen mental health issues than social media.

• How could this be? Perhaps it has something to do with consistently ignoring the elephant(s) in the room disrupting life for young adults. Like gambling.

  • Another one on gambling to belabor the point.

• Of note, Alpha is not the only school innovating. Another trend I’m starting to follow is the idea that maybe schools shouldn’t | be that big.

• Small schools make sense as a natural evolution of the school choice movement. They are inherently nimble, better able to adjust to the needs of rising special education enrollments and changing community demographics.

• Their lack of scale also makes them less susceptible to the labor strife big districts like SFUSD are struggling with.   

• Non-sequitur: What does the tutoring industry look like now that COVID funding is gone?

• And the Education Department (ED) releases new vision for the Institute of Education Sciences, the research, statistics, and evaluation arm of ED. 

Higher Ed / Workforce

• The great computer science exodus. The popular narrative that AI will eliminate the need for computer science training appears to be resonating with college students. Which is great for the college students ignoring it, whose projected starting salary - $81K/year for entry-level computer science graduates - continues to go up.

• IBM is also betting big on the computer science degree, with plans to triple entry-level hiring next year.

• As much as I continue to believe in the computer science degree, I also welcome alternative pathways to high-paying jobs. Like Rolex University, where graduates can expect starting salaries in excess of $90,000/year.

• A non-AI/comp sci trendy topic in higher ed: universities investing in sports programs to drive enrollments. Unfortunately, it’s possible we’ve hit the limit on the impact of this strategy, as Lourdes University, a small school in Ohio, elects to shut down after a failed bet on growth via sports programs. 

• A cohort of universities that has not hit the upper bound on their growth? The Megas. However, there are some early signs that public sentiment may be shifting on them: how a tiny nonprofit school became one of America’s largest universities.

Other

• What The Economist got right and wrong about education technology. “The Economist cherry-picked a single sentence from a nuanced 40-page meta-analysis and inverted its conclusion…A more honest headline would be ‘We’re Spending $87 Billion on the Wrong Ed Tech.’”

Looking for your next opportunity in education? Check out our W/A Jobs, which features 3,614 career opportunities from 314 organizations across the education industry. A few roles that we’re excited about from the past week:

• McGraw Hill is hiring a remote Product Owner for their Learning Tools to launch new platform builds and customer experiences, measure their in-field performance against KPIs, and implement improvement strategies and tactics.

• Dreamscape Learn is hiring a Junior Artist in Culver City to assist in the creation of story-driven VR experiences in the world of science and education.

• Pluralsight is hiring a Strategic Operations Lead in their Office of the CEO to crafting the company’s strategic narrative and support the operational excellence of the executive team

Whiteboard Advisors is the leading policy-related diligence partner for education investors, advising on most major private equity transactions in education over the past 15 years. Our specialty is translating complex policy dynamics into insights that inform decision-making. Reply to this email to learn more.